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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) yesterday released the Final Draft Version 8.0 of the Energy Star specification for comment and the Consumer Technology Association immediately chimed in.

Douglas Johnson, vice president of technology policy, issued the following statement:

EPA's proposal to mandate energy-savings features in all preset picture modes would put EPA in the business of control, deciding how consumers receive and use technology. EPA's new proposed Energy Star specification for TVs means the American living room would look a little more like how the government thinks it should — but not what's best for consumers.

The EPA's latest proposed Energy Star specification for TVs means nearly all preset picture settings in TVs will include Automatic Brightness Control (ABC) and any other energy-saving feature enabled by default. If ABC is enabled by default in all preset picture modes, these modes will look very similar and, more troubling, negatively impact the consumer experience.

EPA's action speaks to the importance of pursuing reforms and improvements concerning the Energy Star program, of which CTA has been a strong supporter for many years.

TVs are an energy efficiency success story, and industry innovation — not uninformed government regulation — is the driver and greatest asset we have to consistently improve their energy efficiency.

Earlier this year, the CTA released a study confirming significant energy savings achievements in TVs over the years. The study found, for example, that while today's LCD televisions have increased in size and resolution capabilities, they consume 76 percent less energy on a unit area basis than they did in 2003, costing consumers on average six cents a day to power one TV.

TVs' declining energy consumption largely stems from improvements in lighting technology and its operation, according to the study, commissioned by the CTA and conducted by Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE). In particular, backlight dimming has reduced the power needed to display high-resolution images. Additionally, energy efficient features such as Automatic Brightness Control (ABC), which dynamically adjusts screen brightness in response to indoor lighting conditions, have become more common.

Other highlights from the study, which examined the power draw of more than 9,000 TV models, include:

• From 2003 to 2015, the average on-mode power draw of TVs decreased 76 percent (from 300 to 70 mW/in2).
• The passive standby draw of TVs dropped 63 percent (from 0.8 to 0.3 watts)
• Since 2010, the average TV screen size increased to at least 40 inches.
• More televisions are being sold with energy-saving features, such as Automatic Brightness Control (ABC) and Motion Detection Dimming (MDD).

Significant improvements in televisions and energy efficiency technology are largely the result of market-driven initiatives, such as the Energy Star program, the CTA said, noting that, more than 80 percent of the TVs sold today in the U.S, satisfy the program's increasingly stringent voluntary efficiency requirements.